Arrowverse Heroes meet Supernatural Being Slenderman
by FanfictionReader2015AD
Summary: Slender Man is Urban Legend Being Turn out his Race is Oldest Race of Alltime.
1. Characters and Info

Fandom: SuperGirl (TVShow), Arrow (TVShow), Flash (TVShow)

Co-written with lrhaboggle

u/6270962/lrhaboggle

Genre: Horror

Rated: M

TV Show Timeline: March 13 2019-May 3 2019 (Alternate Universe of TVShow by CW)

Chapters: 7

Endings: 3 (Good, Bad, Bittersweet) Bittersweet Ending is Canon

Cast

Immortal Supernatural Being Slenderman (Alien Race: )

Kate (Alien Race: Human)

Lauren (Alien Race: Human)

CR (Alien Race: Human)

Team Supergirl (Universe 38) "Main Characters"

Kara Zor El aka Kara Danvers aka Supergirl (Alien Race: Kryptonian)

James Olsen aka Guardian (Alien Race: Human)

J'onn J'onzz aka Martian Manhunter (Alien Race: Green Martian)

Nia Nal aka Dreamer (Alien Race: Human-Naltorian Hybrid)

Alex Danvers (Alien Race: Human)

Lena Luthor (Alien Race: Human)

Maggie Sawyer (Alien Race: Human)

Winn Schott (Alien Race: Human)

Team Flash (Universe 1) "Minor Characters"

Barry Allen aka The Flash (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Cisco Ramon aka Vibe (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Doctor Caitlin Snow aka Killer Frost (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Joe West (Alien Race: Human)

Iris West (Alien Race: Human)

Ralph Dibny aka Elongated Man (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Cecille Horton (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Harrison Sherloque Wells (Alien Race: Human)

Nora West Allen aka XS (Alien Race: Human / Metahuman)

Team Arrow (Universe 1) "Minor Characters"

Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow (Alien Race: Human)

Felicity Smoak aka Overwatch (Alien Race: Human)

Dinah Drake aka Black Canary (Alien Race: Human)

John Diggle aka Spartan (Alien Race: Human)

Helena Bertinelli aka The Huntress (Alien Race: Human)

Thea Queen aka Speedy (Alien Race: Human)


	2. Chapter 1: The Forest

Kate, Lauren and CR. Three best friends on one crazy, glorious adventure. With the moon high and the lights low, the trio of old friends slipped away from their quiet suburban home in the small town of Midvale in order to roam the nearby forest (Oakside Park) just beyond their tiny town's limits. The forest, during the day, was nothing special. It was just another walking place, a park for people to explore and enjoy. At night, however, legends and rumors insisted that an evil, demonic entity would come alive, stalking through the trees and readying to kill any poor, innocent, stupid soul who dared to wander into its domain after the stroke of 12.

"Do you really believe it, though?" Lauren asked her two companions. "The stories, I mean."

"Of course we believe it!" CR answered for himself and Kate both. "Haven't you seen the proof? The stories? The data? All the news clippings? This creature, this monster, is real! He's got to be!" his eyes lit up with excitement as he and his two friends finally reached the entrance to Oakside park.

"Here we are," Kate murmured as she looked up at the entrance archway with a nervous yet determined expression. "Let's see if he'll do the same."

"What, you really think he's just gonna waltz out from the trees and say hi?" it was clear Lauren was far more skeptical than Kate or CR, but the latter two ignored her, too wrapped up in their own awe and fear to listen to her. Lauren heaved a sigh and grumbled a little, but as Kate and CR broke into the park, she followed obediently after them into the forest.

Lauren might not have believed in the monster Kate and CR were so desperately trying to get proof of, but she didn't mind spending a night out in the forest with the two of them. They were her best friends, after all, and it wasn't like she had anything better to do. It was spring break. No school, no work, just rest and relaxation. That meant days often ran late into the night, so a little run-around into the forest was certainly not something she considered dangerous.

For about an hour, the trio explored the large forest. Nothing unusual ever stuck out to any of them.

"It does look a bit different, and a bit bigger at night," Kate mused, giving a thoughtful look at a giant, gnarled old tree standing right in the middle of their pathway.

"But it's still nothing spooky or ghostly or otherworldly," Lauren finished, and both of the girls were right. Although the park did look a bit different in the dark, there really was nothing ominous or supernatural so far. It was just a park. The one and only thing that looked even mildly weird was just a random piece of paper that had been attached to the tree's thick, twisted trunk. It was a cheap, scrappy piece of paper and, drawn in a rough sketch, was a forest with a tall man standing in the middle of it. But the quality of the drawing was so poor, looking like someone had just taken an old pencil and started sketching right then and there, none of the exploring trio really thought much of it.

"I wonder what it's doing here?" Kate mused as she inspected the drawing closer.

"Well, whatever it is, it's not very good," Lauren couldn't help but snark as she leaned in over Kate's shoulder.

"Probably just some little kid, trying to be cute," CR agreed as he studied the rough, thick black lines of the picture. The trees were like sticks and the tall man standing in between them was just as poorly drawn. He wore a suit and tie, but lacked a face. Perhaps it was the drawer's father and they hadn't had time to finish it all up before something distracted them? It was the most likely answer, but none of the three could understand why it was just hanging up on the tree trunk. It really was likely just a little child, trying to show off his or her little doodle, but why hadn't the kid taken it with them?

"Oh, well, let's just leave it here, maybe the kid will come back for it tomorrow," CR said at last. "We came ghost hunting after all, not art shopping!" and he was quick to move away from the crude drawing, leaving Kate and Lauren to share a small laugh before hurrying along after him down the moonlit road ahead deeper into the forest.

But not long after finding that mysterious little drawing, something finally came around. It was Him. Tall and thin, suited up with a face as empty, ominous, powerful and mystical as a full moon, He made his arrival.

"Children, children, I can see children…" he crooned to himself, voice low and chilling. Had anyone heard it, it would have driven them to insanity, so otherworldly was his voice, but because he was only speaking to himself, nothing at all seemed to change. The night grew a bit darker and colder, but nothing too drastic had happened. Yet…

"Look, why don't we go back home for the night? It's almost 3:00 AM and we still haven't found anything," Lauren was the first to try and call it quits, growing tired. Although a late-night walk in the moonlit park with her two best friends at her side was fun, she really did want to get home soon so that she could fall into a deep, peaceful slumber.

"Oh, come on, just a little bit longer!" Kate pleaded, looking passionate about finding her boogeymonster.

"Yeah, Lauren, don't be such a party pooper!" CR agreed teasingly. "You may be afraid, but Kate and I want to catch this creature so that we have something to show for tonight's work!"

"Because tomorrow night we all won't totally be free," Lauren deadpanned sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

The trio continued to exchange this playful banter for a few minutes more, Kate and CR begging with Lauren to let them stay out just a little bit longer while Lauren advocated heading home. But while the three argued, a fourth member soon joined their party, stalking them from above, slinking through the trees like a giant spider. He, unlike them, was totally silent. He said nothing as he hunted them along, creeping after them through the branches hanging over their heads.

n the"-come back another-" Lauren had been right i middle of saying, then something long, thick, black and vaguely slimy shot down from overhead and wrapped itself completely around her face. She screamed in pure terror, but because the thick, black tentacle was wrapping so quickly around all of her face, all she could do was convulse and claw at the tentacle, her scream muffled almost into silence by its powerful grip. She flailed while CR and Kate gave horrified, terrified shrieks, but their own screams were cut off all too soon by two more giant black tentacles that swiftly wrapped around their faces too until nothing remained.

They all thrashed, clawing at the tentacles, but they might as well have been attacking a brick wall for all the good it did. They were dragged straight back up into the air until they were dangling several feet off the ground, still being suffocated by the powerful tentacles that held them in place like iron bars. They continued to thrash and flail, kicking and screaming as they were dragged higher and higher into the trees, but there was no one around to see them, and certainly no one could hear them because of how well the tentacles were muffling their desperate and panicked cries.

In time, though, the screaming stopped. One by one, each of the trio gave up the ghost and stopped fighting. CR was suffocated, hanging limply from the tentacles as if he were hanging by a noose, body going limp as his final struggles finally faded out of him. Kate was viciously ripped open, torn limb from limb until she was in several different pieces. She screamed her last breath away as she was torn apart before her own eyes, more and more tentacles coming out of the shadows to rip her to pieces until her insides were outside. Each and every piece of her was absorbed up into the creature. He held tighter and tighter onto her broken body until it seemed to vanish right into his chest and tentacles completely.

Lauren was the last to go, body impaled on the very tree she and Kate and CR had all been inspecting earlier, the old gnarled one with the drawing on it. As the sharp branches sank through her body, impaling her in several different places, her blood ran down the trunk until it began to stain that little drawing. The white man's face was turned scarlet and all of the trees looked like they were raining blood. The creature responsible, the one in the photo, who was not some little kid's father after all, only surveyed his graphic artwork with a serene aura radiating off of his horrifically and chillingly tall and lithe body. He watched as Lauren bled out slowly, sinking deeper and deeper onto the branches. He watched as her blood added a splash of color to that crude drawing of him. He watched her die. He enjoyed every single second of it.

With all three of them dead, then, he vanished once more, right into the ethereal midnight mist. He was gone without a trace, leaving only two corpses behind (the third having been the one absorbed into his own entity) and it was like he had never been there. This entire graphic ordeal all happened on a calm, normal summer night, and not a single soul was around to witness it and live to tell the tale. So much had happened all in a matter of minutes, but just as quickly as it had started, it had ended, until it was like nothing else had happened at all. Minus the two corpses, nothing at all had changed, and the forest was just as normal as it had been hours and hours earlier. The creature was gone again, vanishing right out of existence once more, and vanishing into the mist, into the forest.


	3. Chapter 2: Help Me

The sun had barely just risen over the horizon of Midvale when screams of horror and terror filled the air. An innocent young man had gone out for an early jog through the woods when he found Lauren's corpse, impaled on a tree and dangling from scarlet branches. He screamed so loud that people back in town heard him and suddenly, calls to the local police station were rolling in like mad. The young jogger's call was the most distressed. Through hysterical hyperventilation, he explained the story to the cops and described Lauren's graphically mutilated corpse. He couldn't take his eyes off of it even though the sight of it made him want to puke.

After that first phone call, the story spread faster than wildfire. The entire town was quick to hear the nightmarish story about the murder of two teenagers and the disapperance of the third (this was Kate, who again had been sucked right into the monster's body, and thusly had no corpse left behind to find). The cops searched high and low, far and wide, for the three missing friends, but nothing ever came of it. Oakside was put down on immediate and indefinite lockdown.

The cops found CR's body after Lauren's, but were still dumbfounded. It looked as if he had been choked and smothered to death, yet there were no markings on him. No sign of a fight, no blood, no DNA from anyone other than himself, no fingerprints. And again, there was Lauren, whose death was the most graphic and perplexing of all. They wanted to chalk it up to murder, but what person would've been able to kill someone that graphically? Kate seemed like the most likely suspect given her own mysterious disappearance, but it was impossible for her to have done such terrible things alone. Had she had help? But how would any human(s) have been able to drag a teenager's body up to the top of a tree and then drop it back down again with enough force to impale? It was a horrifying and bloody mystery no one could explain.

"I think we're going to need backup," the chief of police muttered at last. It was clear that no human could've done this. But what about an alien? And if it was an alien who was responsible, then they were going to need more than the local police station to help out.

The police sent out a request for more specialized aid and the DEO answered the call. By proxy, that brought in Supergirl.

"That's horrible!" the Girl of Steel cried in disgust as she caught wind of the story. It broke her heart to think that this had happened in her hometown. What a bittersweet homecoming it was for her and her sister.

"That's definitely not human," Alex agreed with a scowl as she studied the files on the attack, thoughts running along the same track as Kara's. It certainly wasn't the welcome home that she would've ever wanted…

"That's where we come in," J'onn finished, already suiting up to go and explore. Alex and Kara were all too happy to join him, swift to suit up and follow him out to the scene of the crime…

"God," Alex had to look away in disgust as she surveyed Lauren's remains. Some of them had been carefully lowered off the tree, but a few more parts and pieces were still stuck firmly onto the branches of the large and gnarled tree. Beside her, Kara looked just as sick, alternating between a nauseous expression and one of pure outrage, as if she desired to find the killer and force them to go through the same exact agonizing demise.

But while the Danvers sisters could only stare helplessly up at the bloody sight before them, J'onn was busy studying the tree itself. Perhaps that sounded strange, and untimely, but there was something J'onn was seeing that no one else was.

"Uncanny!" he murmured as he touched the tree bark. "It's the middle of summer and yet this tree already looks like it's in a late autumn!" he continued to work on the tree. It was old, withered, dying, and decayed in multiple spots on the inside. Even though every other plant in the park was rich and full of life and health and strength, this one particular tree right in the middle of the path looked like it was on death's door. But despite its poor condition, it didn't seem in danger of dying! It was clearly being kept alive by something. And it was that "Something" that J'onn was worried about.

"Did you find anything?" Alex asked, finally prying her eyes away from Lauren's skewered remains.

"No, but I can't help but wonder why this tree still looks like it has so many years left on it even though all other signs point to it dropping dead before the year's out!" J'onn muttered darkly. Alex knelt down to help him study the tree, both of them trying to find some outside source of life for the thing. Kara, meanwhile, had finally steeled her nerves enough to fly up and study Lauren's body, helping pull the final pieces of it down while also trying to see if she could find any signs of death (outside of the obvious ones).

"Nothing!" she muttered to herself as she forced herself to keep on looking at Lauren's mutilated corpse. But it was true. No DNA beside her own, no other sign of a struggle (there weren't any wounds from any weapons), it was as if she had just been teleported right over the tree and left to fall where she would land! But that made no sense! Was there any alien with that level of power? Kara quickly wracked her brains, but she could think of nothing.

Knowing that continuing to stare at Lauren's bloody body was going to do nothing more than upset and disturb her further, Kara floated back down to the ground where J'onn and Alex were still trying to understand why this tree looked so different from all the others. Maybe there was some connection between this tree and the murder victim? Perhaps that sounded silly, but it was something.

"Check the rest of the forest," J'onn finally commanded of Kara. "See if any other trees could've been used instead of this one. If you find out that this is the only tree to look like this, then I think we may have the first part of our puzzle. Why does this tree look so close to death when all the others are so lush and green? There has to be a connection between it and the victim!" he continued, sending Kara off with a sharp command. She nodded back in agreement before taking flight once more, this time zooming over the forest as fast as she could.

Kara felt bad for saying it, but it really was a lovely day out, and the park was so beautiful. It was picturesque, to say the least. She just felt bad that she had been unable to come in more jubilant times. But as she continued to fly along, she saw nothing else suspicious, out of the ordinary or uncanny. All the rest of the forest park looked totally calm, quiet, normal and beautiful. Whether or not this meant anything was what J'onn was trying to figure. Kara thought it was a bit of a stretch, but she didn't have the heart to say it. Instead, she continued to dutifully scout the entire park and forest. Still nothing… Oh! Wait!

Something unnaturally and eerily white caught Kara's eye. It almost seemed to be glowing! And it was a piece of paper, stuck on the side of a random red truck that was left abandoned in the heart of the forest. It didn't look like a crash site, because the truck was entirely unharmed. It was old and dirty, but not at all scratched or dented. But it was cold, and it didn't look as if there had been any humans anywhere near it in a very long time. That bright white page stood out on its side, then, almost seeing to glow as Kara stepped cautiously over to it.

"HELP ME…" the Kryptonian read, and then suddenly, she felt a chill of dread fill her entire body. She was not usually one to get scared, but in this moment, she feared for her life. Without even really knowing why, she felt as if something far stronger, older and more otherworldly than she could've ever imagined was watching her. She didn't dare turn around to check, though, for once, too frightened to even try. Instead, as quietly and calmly as she could, she replaced the page on the side of the old abandoned truck and jumped straight back up into the air, fleeing back to J'onn and Alex as quickly as she could. She almost thought she could hear someone crying out for her, then, in the very distant mists in her mind. It was a female voice, and all it could say was "HELP ME." This mystery was not going to be solved quickly, quietly or easily, was it? HELP ME.


	4. Chapter 3: Don't Look or It Takes You

In the days to come, no progress was made at all concerning the strange and violent deaths of Kate, Lauren and CR. Kara still felt as though someone (or someTHING) was always watching her, just beyond the edges of her vision, even after she'd returned home to National City. But because she could never confirm it, she chose to stay silent about it. As unnerving as the feeling was, being perpetually watched, she didn't want to unnerve anyone else by admitting this. And she didn't want to seem weak, as if this gruesome case had somehow frightened her. So she retained her strong and courageous mask and said nothing. But she wasn't the only one feeling this way, as if something were always watching…

After that first incident in the park when Kara found the paper, all the other Superfriends began to suffer various afflictions as well. If Kara was suffering from high paranoia and low-level hallucinations, then Alex was suffering from the opposite. She didn't feel very unnerved or stalked, but she did continually hallucinate a strange, tall, thin man in a suit. No matter where she went, he always seemed to be there, but always just out of her line of sight… Sometimes he was someone standing a few people in front of her while she waited in line for a coffee at the local Starbucks. Other times, he was a random passenger on the bus she took home every night. Other times, he was in one of the containment chambers of the DEO. And other times still, she thought she could see him almost gliding over the ground just outside her apartment… But Alex was so busy trying to understand what had happened to Kate, Lauren and CR that every time she saw this mysterious man, he would only unnerve her for a second before he vanished from her mind and, although she wasn't quite aware of it, her very reality…

J'onn, meanwhile, came down with a very strange sickness. It was nothing like anyone had ever seen and it wasn't too debilitating, but it certainly wasn't ignorable. It was uncomfortable, and he felt sickly and weak all the time. He occasionally suffered from coughing fits and, once or twice, those fits resulted in him actually coughing up blood.

"But I don't feel sick!" J'onn protested as Alex hurried him to the med bay. For some odd reason, the tests all seemed to agree with J'onn. Nothing was coming up on any of them.

"Then why were you coughing up blood?!" Alex snapped, speaking to herself and the negatively-responding medical tests just as much as she was talking to J'onn. It certainly was a mystery, but no one knew where to even start.

"Maybe it's some sort of Martian sickness," J'onn muttered at last, but even he didn't quite believe this theory…

And not too long after, Alex began to come down with strange fits and bouts too. Nausea, vomiting, extreme exhaustion even after she'd gotten a good night's rest, and nosebleeds were just a few of the symptoms she was experiencing.

"Well at least that's a little bit more normal!" J'onn frowned as he read Alex's medical tests. A fever.

"Great," she moaned as she held a tissue to her bloody nose. She felt really queasy.

But while she and J'onn dealt with physical sickness, Kara suffered another mental-based attack. Nightmares. On top of feeling like there was always somebody watching, she would occasionally have nightmares of being back in that forest, only this time, it would be at night, and she would be helpless to escape. Powers gone. Inability to run, fly or hide. Inability to find a way out, or to fight. Powerless. Capable only of running around in endless circles. The gnarled tree. Mines. Mountains. The gnarled tree again. An outhouse. An old farm. The gnarled tree again. A silo. Oil tanks. The gnarled tree again. The abandoned truck. An empty field. The gnarled tree again. A line of abandoned cabins. A lake. The gnarled tree again… No matter what happened, in those nightmares, she always came back to that tree somehow. No end.

By the end of that week, Kara looked just as weak as Alex and J'onn, the nightmares causing insomnia. But by the end of that week, something good finally happened. They ended better off than when they had started.

"I finally have a lead," Alex sighed in relief as she held up a small file. "Finally something to show for all our hard work!"

"Thank god!" J'onn and Kara both said in unison. They raced over to Alex to see what she had found. Slenderman.

According to the file, he was a myth, a legend, but despite this fact, there was still a plethora of information about him.

"And you think this creature is what killed those three teenagers?" Kara asked, sounding slightly disbelieving as she riffled through the papers Alex managed to find.

"Well, I know it says he's a myth, and maybe I don't believe in Slenderman EXACTLY as the papers describe him, but it could be some sort of alien who's responsible, and whatever the Slenderman REALLY is is what's behind the attacks," Alex replied as she hopped onto a nearby computer, pulling up DEO files on every known alien in the known universes. Some of them did sound rather Slender-ish…

So with this bit of info to get them started, the trio quickly branched out from there (pun possibly intended). Alex had searched about creatures who lived in forests and preyed upon humans, but since this attack was something no Earthly creature could've done (human, animal or otherwise) she had set her search engines to specifically target aliens. Slenderman, though as far as anyone knew, he was not technically an alien (if he even existed at all), was one of the first things to come up. Now, with Kara and J'onn at her side, Alex was busily trying to find an other aliens out there that would be close to Slenderman's description. It wasn't much, but it was a start!

But while Alex and J'onn tried to find an alien that matched Slenderman's description, Kara found herself more interested in the mythological creature itself. Although Alex and J'onn knew about the monster, both having been very well versed in human internet culture, Kara was still relatively new to the lore. She spent a great deal of time, then, on wikipedia and youtube, trying to understand just who the Slenderman was. Even if he was only a scary story to tell in the dark, she wanted to know what he was, and what he was like. That was where the internet was coming in handy…

Whether or not any of the info was actually true or real was up for debate, but Kara found it all very fascinating. It was horrific and graphic, yes, but also very interesting. The lore seemed to stretch back across the millenia, and even if it was all only fabricated, it was still neat to see how humans had managed to create such a complex, intricate character, who weaved into the rest of Earth's history so smoothly. Some said he was an Egyptian god. Some said he was German (perhaps the product of a Nazi expiriment gone teribly wrong). Some said he was from Hell. Some said he was from another dimension. Some said he was a demon. Some said he was an angel. Some said he was a god. Some said he was a witch. Some said he was a robot. Some said he was a fairy. Some said he was some other creature entirely. Some said he was the creation of a witch, or someone else who knew black magic/necromancy.

But even if the origins were foggy, the stories were all the same: a terrifying monster who lived in dark forests who liked to brutually murder (and sometimes consume, though not necessarily eat, if that made any sense) his victims. Kara could see why his lore would've been so closely tied to the gruesome fates of Kate, Lauren and CR. Even if Kara, herself, didn't personally believe in a real Slenderman, she could see where he had come from all of a sudden.

But the nightmarish stories and research efforts weren't over yet. Not even close… Instead, after one lazy google search and an innocent link-click, Kara found herself staring at another page. Not another internet page, but another Slender page from the forest. DON'T LOOK, OR IT TAKES YOU. And then Kara heard a loud, crashing chord exploding in her head. She cried out in pain, clamping her ears shut and closing her eyes reflexively. When she opened them again, the eerie drawing was still on the screen, but it was taking up the entire screen and nothing else could be seen. There was no option to close the window and the keys refused to respond. Kara was stuck looking at that large and haunting image. DON'T LOOK, OR IT TAKES YOU.

And then suddenly, her computer died. It went black without a sound and nothing she did would bring it back to life. But in the split second before it had shut off, Kara thought for certain that she had seen an eerie, faceless white visage in the screen's reflection… But that was impossible! She was sitting in bed! The only thing behind her was the headboard! Right? And sure enough, when Kara finally dared to turn around, she saw nothing but her bedroom wall. But that didn't mean she was a fool for getting scared, nor did that mean the danger was past. Instead, in the few seconds it took her to fully turn around, the owner of that faceless, white visage had teleported outside. Now he was looking at her from the street below, but she didn't even think to check down there. Instead, she only turned back to her now-dead computer. Even though the screen was black, she could not unsee those chilling words on that large, white paper: DON'T LOOK, OR IT TAKES YOU. And again, the feeling of being watched returned…


	5. Chapter 4: No No No No No!

The next night, the Superfriends were back in Oakside Park, returning to Midvale for a second investigation. Since they had the feeling that they would be taking on an extremely dangerous foe, their numbers were many, and each of them was armed to the teeth with anything and everything that an alien-fighter could ever want. The team consisted of Lyra, Winn, Alex, Maggie, J'onn, M'gann, James, Lena, and Supergirl.

"Alright, everyone. Midnight. Right on time," Winn muttered, checking his watch as he and the team entered Oakside.

"Let's spread out and start searching for clues," J'onn agreed.

"And remember, the code word if we get lost and need help is "Supergirl", ok?" Lena quickly informed everyone else as she gestured to her and everyone else's wrist communicators. A murmur for "oks" and "got its" rippled through the team. Then everyone got into pairs. Lyra was going to explore with Winn, Alex with Maggie, J'onn with M'gann, James with Lena, and then Supergirl was going to go alone. But being a Kryptonian, no one was too worried for her. Admittedly, though, Kara had wanted a companion, if only to help ease her anxiety and paranoia, but since she didn't want to drag any more people than necessary into this mission, she continued to uphold a brave face and accept the option of going alone.

For a time, nothing happened. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and the night remained quiet and peaceful. But then the peace was eternally shattered for two of the exploring teams. The first team to be attacked was Lyra and Winn.

"Oh, man! Do we have to go in there?" Winn whimpered, pointing his flashlight over to a strange, nearby complex that he and Lyra had stumbled upon during their exploration. The circle of light from his flashlight refused to stay still because he was trembling so hard.

"I think we may have to," Lyra nodded, her face much calmer and more resolved than Winn's. Leading the way, then, she brought them both over to the building and inside. It was a bathroom facility.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man!" Winn continued to whimper, his beam of light still darting all over the place as he whipped his head back and forth and shook like a leaf on a tree in the middle of a windstorm. It was just so dark, eerie and cramped in here! At this rate, he would certainly need a bathroom, but there was no way in heck that he'd be stopping to use the one here! Instead, he only continued to try and keep his breathing and heart rate in check as he padded softly after Lyra, who continued to bravely lead the way through the eerie, empty bathroom.

"Hey! What's this?" she whispered at last, pointing to something attached to one of the many long, white halls of the bathroom. It almost seemed to glow at them. But it was just… a piece of paper? It read "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO".

"Ok, Lyra, come on, let's get out of here!" Winn pleaded after seeing the eerie drawing, suddenly feeling something cold creeping down his spine. That page had unsettled him deeply, and its frantic message combined with its sloppy presentation did nothing to calm him down. Instead, he finally took charge and grabbed Lyra's arm, attempting to drag her away from the paper and back outside, but Lyra refused to go that easily.

"It could be a clue! We should take it with us just in case!" she insisted, snatching the paper off the wall before Winn could cry out for her not to. Even though he couldn't explain how or why he knew, he just had a really bad feeling about that paper, and that actually trying to remove it from the place where they had found it was a really, really, really bad idea. But it was too late, Lyra had already taken it…

That was when He appeared, towering and powerful, menacing and bleak. He was so tall he had to stoop slightly just so that he could fit into the complex. It might've been comical, had his appearance not been so sudden and chilling. But to suddenly see a tall, faceless man in a suit standing mere inches away from them and blocking their only way out sent Lyra and Winn both into a panic. They screamed their lungs out, both of them shrieking like terrified kids as they scrambled over one another in a mad dash to escape the creature, but no one else could hear them. They were trapped in that little bathroom complex, which was soundproof. They could scream and cry all they wished, but only He would hear them…

He began his approach, slow and menacing, practically gliding after them as long, thick, slimy black tentacles poked out of his back, hissing and coiling like snakes as they slowly inched away from his tall, lanky body and towards the two fleeing visitors.

"Give the page back! Give the page back!" Winn shrieked like a maniac as he and Lyra continued to try and outrun the monster. In a futile attempt to placate it, Lyra heeded Winn's command and threw the paper over her shoulder. It did nothing. The monster continued to advance. Both of the victims heaved a sob of terror and defeat, feeling panic and paranoia unlike anything they had ever felt before start to settle in.

Visions grew blurry, heartbeats grew far too loud and fast, they were both drenched in icy sweat that burned their aching bodies. They were both sprinting as hard and fast as they could, but they could never escape. There was no way out. They just kept running around in circles, forever trapped in that little bathroom. Every corner they turned, He was waiting for them. Endless. Taunting. Patient. Always only a few inches away, tentacles still writhing and coiling after them like sadistic little snakes that were just as sentient and cruel as their master.

Dizziness. Headaches. Nosebleeds. Sharp pain in the abdomen, chest and stomach. Ragged breathing. Lyra and Winn finally started to give up, pushed past their limits. Their legs began to lock up and would go no further. Their lungs were on fire. They could only stumble and collapse, finally totally spent.

"Go, Winn, go!" Lyra gasped with her final breaths as she pressed one last kiss to his face. Then before he could even blink, let alone move or speak, she began to drag herself back over to the monster, who was still gliding effortlessly towards them, hunting them down until the very end. As she dragged herself back over to him, she raised her weapon in one last act of defiance. Every shot bounced harmlessly off the creature's body and it didn't take long before its tentacles quickly overpowered Lyra, wrapping her up while she was still alive and squirming before taking her and backing back down the hallway from whence it had come…

That was the last Winn ever saw of her, giving one dismayed cry of his own before suddenly finding himself back out in the middle of the forest, alone, exhausted, traumatized and too weak to move or cry out for help. But his mind was still moving at a million miles an hour and all he could think was, "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

The second team to be attacked was Alex and Maggie.

"So remind me what the heck this creature-alien-monster-thing is again?" Maggie requested as she and Alex crept through the forest. Both their flashlights shone through the darkness, but they saw nothing except trees, trees, trees and more trees.

"It's the Slenderman," Alex replied, voice tight with fear and conviction.

"Wait, you mean the tall skinny guy with lots of tentacles and no face?" Maggie echoed, far more animated in her speech. She sounded very skeptical, but Alex only nodded sternly. And then she explained the research that she and the DEO had been doing over the past week.

"From what we've found, the Slenderman might be a little realer than we first thought. There may be some pieces of his lore that are actually based on truth, and based in reality... Aliens..." and then Maggie began to understand.

"So you think Slenderman is an alien?" she asked. "Or that whatever is doing this is an alien who may resemble Slenderman in some way?"

"Exactly," Alex gave Maggie a grave nod. She opened her mouth to say more, but was silenced at once by a deafening, crashing chord. It sounded like someone hitting all the keys on a piano all at once, as hard as they possibly could.

On pure reflex alone, both Maggie and Alex cried out in pain before slamming their hands over their ears. At the same time, they both squeezed their eyes shut as well, in response to the pain. And it was Maggie who opened her eyes first. Suddenly, an agonizing headache overtook her, as if she had been shot in the head with a bullet designed to induce the worst migraines known to mankind. She cried out in pain again as she suddenly felt like the entire world was spinning and wavering around and underneath her. She even clutched at her head in response to the sharp, sudden pain, and the disorienting effect that it left in its wake. And in leaving her eyes opened, she finally managed to catch a glimpse of it. Of him. Of Slenderman.

"He's here!" she managed to croak weakly, arm feeling like lead as she raised it up to point at the monster standing off in the distance, staring at them menacingly even though it had no eyes or face. She knew at once that it was the monster, the Slenderman, who was the cause of all of her and Alex's sudden grief. She took Alex's hand and began to drag her away, already trying to flee even though she knew deep down inside that the only way she and Alex would survive the night was if the Slenderman chose to be merciful and let them go. Even though they were armed to the teeth with some of the best weapons on Earth, Maggie already knew that it would be as useless against Slenderman as a simple beebee gun would be against a fully-powered Kryptonian. Not a single thing in their arsenal would work, Maggie could already tell, so that was why she resorted to fleeing instead, even though she knew that would be just as fruitless in the end. But that didn't stop her from trying. And praying. And crying.

"Maggie. Maggie! MAGGIE!" Alex tried to shout, stumbling over her own feet as Maggie dragged her along. Slenderman had already started to take chase, once again gliding over the ground as easily as a snake, his tentacles starting to emerge as he hunted down his next victims. Alex could hardly see through her own pain, but she could feel Maggie's hand clamping down on hers and she cried out for her girlfriend in one last ditch-effort to find something real to cling to.

"Stop. Stop! STOP!" Alex bellowed. "What are you doing?! We need to stand and fight this thing!"

"What can we possibly hope to do against it?!" Maggie sobbed back, still dragging Alex along. Slenderman was gaining on them as if they were only walking instead of sprinting.

"We can't just let it go without a fight!" Alex argued, managing to find one of her guns. She pulled it from its holster and began firing off into the dark. She had no idea if anything was actually hitting its target, or if it would even matter, but getting a chance to fight back felt better, nobler and braver to her than just running away.

Maggie, meanwhile, heaved another sob before reluctantly pulling out her own special gun and trying to help Alex fend off the monster while they continued to flee. Maybe the bullets would at least buy them some time? It would be better than nothing! And while they shot, Maggie struggled to turn on her wrist-communicator watch in attempt to call for help, but for some reason, the signal had suddenly gone dark and the watch no longer worked. Not a single com was connected anymore and Maggie would've had the same amount of success just screaming at the top of her lungs for all the success she was having with their technology.

Alex, meanwhile, continued to try and stand proud and tall even though she was bleeding from every hole in her face at that point. She continued to fire bullet after bullet towards the approaching demon, but it was like watching a criminal try and use a handgun on Supergirl. Every single bullet, no matter how special or powerful, failed.

Suddenly, then, the tentacles lunged like vipers going in for the final attack. They coiled themselves around the two fleeing girls and held them in place tighter than steel bars. Alex and Maggie both tried to cry out one last time, but the breath was literally crushed and squeezed out of their bodies before they could even start the scream. The tentacles then dragged them high into the air, ripping them apart. Alex soundlessly cried out Maggie's name, tears flooding down her face as she struggled to see her girlfriend one last time before their impending and graphic demise. Maggie was doing the same thing, flailing as the tentacles slowly wrapped themselves around her like a cocoon, and she too was trying to say Alex's name one last time and see her face once again before her world went dark forever...

And then suddenly, the two were smashed together again. They both realized what was about to happen at the same time, horrified and sickened by the cartoonish and graphic fate that was in store for them now.

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!" they both panicked and shrieked as they were lifted high in the air. Slenderman was tying them together now, like two shoelaces on a pair of sneakers. In cartoonish fashion, he literally bent and broke their bodies around one another, tying up limbs and torsos until they were literally in a human knot, tighter than anything any ordinary sneaker might've seen.

And it was sometime during this bloody and agonizing process that the two lovers breathed their last. With their bodies being forcibly bent in all sorts of directions that a body was not supposed to be able to bend, they slowly broke apart and felt their life essences draining little by little with every twist, turn and contortion. Suddenly, they couldn't breathe. Then they couldn't move. Then they were being crammed together until bones were broken. Then they were being twisted until joints were severed. Then they were being looped in and out of one another until every piece of them had been combined into one gory and almost-cartoonish knot. Then, it was over…

The first screams heard that night belonged to Kara, just as the sun peeked up over the horizon.

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!" she sobbed, bellowing her grief as she stumbled upon the corpses of her beloved sister and friend. She had been flying back to the entrance of the park, actually feeling good about things for once just because of how peaceful the night had been, and then she had caught a glimpse of It. Of Alex and Maggie's mangled, bloody bodies, bent in all sorts of nightmarish positions as they were literally bound as one. It was the sickest mockery of their love and support that Kara could've ever imagined.

"WHO DID THIS?! WHO MURDERED MY SISTER?!" the Kryptonian continued to howl like a wounded beast. This time, her screams were head, and everyone else came rushing over in a panic. When they caught sight of the nightmarish and messy mass that Kara was cradling in her arms, however, they all stopped dead in their tracks.

"Oh my god," J'onn covered his mouth, tears already springing into his eyes. Lena and James both went wide-eyed and slack-jawed and James began to gag. M'gann gave a despairing wail of her own as she clung to J'onn before she, too, began to wretch. But through the panic, J'onn was able to realizing something else.

"Where are Agents Schott and Strayd?" he was almost snarling, his horror and despair swiftly morphing into a dangerous rage. Kara heard his words and went through the same emotional change, her blank eyes suddenly sharpening and hardening as she realized that J'onn was right. Lyra and Winn were missing…

Faster than the blink of an eye, Kara was gone, soaring overhead with her suit stained a dark crimson as she swiftly hunted the forest in attempt to find Winn and/or Lyra, praying to Rao and God both that she would find them both alive…

Her wish was half granted. She found Winn, alive but unconscious, but Lyra was nowhere to be found…

"Just like Kate," Kara breathed in horror and disgust as she picked Winn up with all the gentleness of a mother holding her baby. Even if Lyra was technically only missing, Kara already had a sinking feeling in her chest that Lyra was more than just missing at this point. And the same went for Kate. SHe was still written off as a missing person, but after seeing what had happened to Lauren and CR (and now Alex and Maggie) Kara wasn't quite so sure about that anymore…

Despite the rage and hatred literally burning through her body at the moment, though, none of it translated into Kara's actions and she gently flew Winn back over to the others. They all gave a collective sob of relief to see that he was still alive, but when they heard his groggy moan, their weak celebration turned dark and cold.

"Where is my wife?" the half-unconscious man wheezed. "Where is Lyra?" and when he caught sight of Alex and Maggie's mangled bodies (or was it body, singular, now?) his eyes rolled back into his head.

"What killed Alex and Maggie?" he gasped, and then he fainted clean away in Kara's arms. She continued to hold him gently, weeping softly into his hair as she cradled him with all the love in her body.

J'onn, meanwhile, could only stare in disgust at Alex and Maggie's bloody, defiled corpses.

"I don't know, Agent Schott," he muttered to himself. "I don't know… But I think I have a clue…" and it was a name none of them dared speak. Not now. Not anymore… Instead, all any of them could think, on an endless loop, was "No, no, no, no, no…"


	6. Chapter 5: Can's Run

In the days to follow, an endless cloud of grief hovered over the Superfriends as they mourned the losses of Alex, Maggie and Lyra. Supergirl had taken something of a "vacation", taking time off to mourn, and Winn had done the same. Both were in a state of mental lockdown, completely broken by the events in Oakside Park.

With Supergirl gone, J'onn was the one who needed to pick up the slack and look after National City while she was out. He didn't mind at all, though, knowing just how devastating the loss of Alex had been for her. J'onn was grieving too, feeling like half his heart had just been ripped from his chest, forcing the other half to beat alone, forever waiting for a partner who would never return. He hadn't felt this hopeless, broken or useless since the genocide of his people, the Green Martians, by the White Martians. He was losing a family member, a child, all over again.

But while J'onn held down the DEO alone, both of the Danvers sisters gone (one only temporarily, thank god) one of those Danvers sisters was traveling out of the country entirely. Flying over the sea, Kara traveled all the way to Europe in an attempt to just get away from all of it, not even wanting to be on the same landmass where Alex had died.

For a time, she traveled Europe, taking no pleasure in it, but still trying to just escape. She traveled from country to country just to find something to do, and something to distract her from the pain, not that it really helped. She saw a great many sights, but they all fell flat for her. All she could see was Alex. All she could think about was Alex. All it was, was Alex. Everything was Alex. Everything she experienced had shades of her fallen sister between the lines, and that's what made Kara feel so miserable and alone.

At one point, then, Kara found herself standing in the Białowieża Forest, located in Podlaskie, Poland. Why she had gone to a forest, of all things, was unknown even to her, but she had found herself drawn to it nonetheless. It was a nice place, lush and green, but Kara took no pleasure from it at all. Instead, she simply wandered through the trees, for hours on end. She saw everything and nothing. Trees, grass, foliage, the occasional wild animal. Kara saw and heard it all, but she felt like someone in a dream, everything passing in a distant haze, like she wasn't really living her own life, but was instead watching someone else.

Eventually, Kara found herself deep in the heart of the forest, beyond where normal people would roam. It was a lovely place, untouched by humanity. It was wild, free and true, nature at its finest and purest. Or at least, it was almost untouched by humanity. Because at one point, Kara found something hanging on one of the trees. A dress. An ancient little thing. An old outfit that was almost completely rotted away by time, yet was still recognizable as an old-fashioned dress. It was hanging from the branches of the tree, torn in several places where the fabric had been impaled by branches.

A sudden rush of horror washed over Kara like a wave as she found herself mentally going back to Oakside, Lauren's bloodied corpse rising up from her memories once again. Lauren's body seemed to transpose over the dress and Kara could already imagine a poor little girl, a child, screaming and crying as her last breath was brutally ripped away from her by merciless tentacles and wicked branches.

Kara began to reel, the horror, anger and disgust so sharp that she actually, physically felt ill. Hardly even aware of what she was doing, then, she flew up to the top of the tree and plucked the remainder of the dress from the branches before flying back to the nearest town in an attempt to learn the story behind this victim. Carved on the branch where the dress had hung was a message "CAN'T RUN".

A part of Kara wondered why she was tormenting herself like this, trying to unearth another graphic death, but another part of her felt insistent upon learning the truth, and this was for two reasons. One, Kara wanted to honor the death of this forgotten little girl. It was out of some strange sense of duty and respect that Kara was trying to learn her story. And two, Kara was pretty sure that Slenderman was responsible for this and to learn that America was NOT his only hunting ground, or his place of origin, was a big deal for her. Of course, she had already known about how far Slenderman's influence had reached, but to see real proof of it was something else entirely and Kara's desire to destroy the monster redoubled. Kara was on the chase again and, this time, she was NOT going to stop. Not until Slenderman was dead!

A few days later, Kara had her answer, and more. That dress belonged to the late Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. The daughter of Queen Victoria, she had been on a trip with her royal family when she was lured away from them into the forest. She was the only one to not return home from that trip and no one ever saw her again. And she had only been seven when she went missing, lured away into that forest which would become her graveyard. It was classic Slenderman stuff.

The rest of the world, however, wrote her off as a missing person, but when Kara flew in with the tattered dress in her hands, the mystery of the lost princess was finally revealed. She had been murdered. Kidnapped and killed. But while everyone else speculated, wondering who the killer was, Kara already had a very good idea of who it was. For the sake of everyone, though, she held her tongue. Who would believe her if she said that Princess Alice's killer was the Slenderman?

So while she left the remains of the dress behind in London, for a team of archeologists to deal with, she flew off to find more answers. She traveled across Europe again, but this time, it wasn't to try and take her mind off of Alex's death. It was to find the truth and history about Slenderman. She found her next clue in Čachtice, which was a small village near Slovakia. Kara found herself in the ruins of the Čachtice castle, the home and eventual prison of the late Elizabeth Báthory, Blood Countess of Hungary.

From what Kara managed to dig up (literally and metaphorically), the Báthory line was another one that Slenderman attacked. And some rumors even pointed to the idea that part of Elizabeth's murderous, bloody and vampiric crimes were caused, in part, by Slenderman. Whether she was under mind-control, or attempting to start a cult for him, was unknown. But even though Kara had no idea how Slenderman tied to Elizabeth personally, she did find a little old journal that had somehow been preserved across the centuries and it belonged to one of Elizabeth's children, little Anastasia Báthory. She, too, had been a victim of Slenderman, lured away into a nearby forest and killed. Her journal was rife with stories about this mysterious man in a suit and tie, tall and pale and faceless, and the very last entry looked chillingly like one of the pages Kara had found back in Oakside. It read "CAN'T RUN".

Only a few days later, Kara was standing in the DEO again, the old journal in her hands.

"Oh my god!" J'onn murmured. He, and everyone else, was stunned. Although all of them knew that Slenderman was a world-wide monster whose vicious reign of murder and terror had touched every part of the world, to actually see the proof of just how far back and how far-spread his attacks where was something else entirely. And then more and more search groups were sent across the globe, each of them tasked with finding more lore about Slenderman and his victims. Looks like that "Can't run" message was even more literal than it seemed. Even vast oceans could not save a victim from the Slenderman. There was literally no way to outrun him…

"That's it. We need to fight him," Kara's voice was as steely as her title and even though J'onn tried to dissuade her, for once, she refused to listen. "We've been too quiet and too cautious for too long. The time for research and observation is over. The time for action is now!" and without another word, she flew away from the DEO and back towards Oakside, downright murderous as she readied herself to fight Slenderman directly. She was going to burn him clean off the face of the Earth and then destroy even the ashes until nothing but ancient journals remained about him…

Kara reached Oakside right around midnight.

"Come on, Slenderman! COME ON! I'M READY!" she thundered into the pitch-black forest. She could feel her heart pounding with anger and adrenaline and she used all of her super-senses to try and sniff the demon out. No more exploring or waiting for him to come to her. Now, she was going to go to him, and she was going to obliterate him…

At last, he made his arrival onto the scene. He teleported out to her, standing only a few feet away.

"You monster," Kara snarled the second she saw him, and she did not hesitate to activate her laser vision and bring it to maximum power. The blue-hot energy burned from her eyes, that jet of pure power striking Slenderman squarely on the chest, but it did absolutely nothing. He only stood there as Kara tried to burn a hole through him.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Kara snarled, then she pushed herself even harder, but it was still useless. She might as well have been trying to shoot him with a laser pointer for all her heat vision did. She could see it smoking in the place where it was hitting his suited chest, but nothing was happening. He wasn't stumbling or falling and he didn't look like he was in pain. He was receiving no injuries, he wasn't catching on fire. Even his suit remained crisp, flawless and unharmed.

"RRRRRAAAAHHHH!" Kara gave an outraged scream before she finally flew straight at Slenderman, fed up with the games. She lunged but, for once, her intended target finally proved faster. The millisecond before she would've slammed into him, Slenderman teleported away. Faster and easier than snapping a finger, he was suddenly gone. And then he was back, a few feet away from Kara, safe once again. He tilted his head, almost taunting her. Instead of being scared, or even a little worried, though, Kara only gave another guttural snarl of rage and hatred before lunging again.

This game of cat and mouse carried on for 20 minutes more, Kara using every power in her arsenal to try and attack Slenderman, but everything either missed or failed. She tried her freeze breath, her sonic scream, her sonic hand-clap. Nothing worked. Nothing even fazed the demon. And at one point, he did finally let her actually slam into him and, for once, it did nothing. For once, the Girl of Steel's most blunt and brutal attack failed. Dismally. It was like smashing into a mountain. Except even a mountain would've cracked. But Slenderman?

Kara flew into him at top speed and was stopped dead in her tracks as she collided with his body. She went reeling backward while he remained unmoved. So this is what villains felt like when they tried to tackle Kara, only to find out how well she lived up to her title…

It was around this point that Kara finally started getting nervous. Nothing was working. And she finally began to hesitate, no longer rushing in like a berserker. That was when Slenderman finally retaliated. He chuckled lowly, the sound reverberating through the entire forest, then he lunged. He teleported right over to Kara and her ears were suddenly filled with a shattering chord. She cried out and covered her ears in pain, but then he filled her mind with a static buzzing louder than a thousand angry bees. Kara fell to her knees from the pain, but Slenderman had only just gotten started…

Now the game of cat and mouse was reversed, and it was Slender who was chasing Kara. Unlike the previous "round", though, this one had a more clear-cut winner: Slender. He teleported all around so that every time she tried to flee, he would always be right there. And sometimes, he teleported HER, bringing her right to his feet. And when he grew tired of his sonic attacks, he finally began to use his tentacles. Those loathsome things that had murdered Alex and Maggie in the most graphic way possible appeared, wriggling and writhing out of his suited back like vipers. They laced themselves around Kara's body and she found herself completely trapped. Immobilized. She could only kick feebly as she was lifted straight up into the air, bound firmly in place.

"No, no, no, no, no!" she muttered lowly, weakly, looking shaken, beaten and a bit bloody. She was on the edge of passing out, certain that this would be her last night alive. Slenderman continued to bring her upward until they were face to face. Then another tentacle wriggled out to meet Kara. It was holding an ancient page. Kara narrowed her bruised eyes, trying to force her hazy mind to focus on what he was showing her. But before she could read it herself, his evil, demonic voice slithered into her brain and hissed around her mind, reading the page for her.

"Can't. Run…" and Kara nearly wretched in response to feeling his hellish voice violating her mind like that. It was disgusting, feeling like bugs crawling under her skin as ice poured down her spine. He chuckled again, the entire forest trembling for a second time.

Kara could only stare up at him helplessly, no longer able to even express fear. Her face was as blank and emotionless as his. Then he tilted his head, still taunting her, and then he began to squeeze. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter. She couldn't escape. Couldn't pull or fly away. Couldn't break free. Kryptonite cuffs would've been easier to break open. And as he continued to constrict her, slowly strangling the life out of her, she heard him hiss out one last time before the darkness set in completely, even blacker than the night shouridg the forest in fear and uncertainty.

"Can't Run."


	7. Chapter 6: Follows

When Kara woke up again (which genuinely amazed her), she found herself lying in the DEO med bay with Winn, J'onn, M'gann, James and Lena all chattering nervously over her.

"Urgh… J'onn?" Kara groaned, and her gentle stirring quickly alerted all of the others to the fact that she was waking up. She was greeted with a tidal wave of relieved gasps and sighs as everyone looked at her with wide, worried eyes. They were all reaching out to her, as though desperate to hug and touch her again, yet terrified that any physical contact would be detrimental to her health. Kara forced herself to sit up, groaning in pain as she did so. She was met with more worried murmurs, and soft commands to rest, lie still and take it easy. Hands were still outstretched, but none touched her. Yet. But the moment she gave her consent, her friends flooded her with hugs, kisses and tears, still whimpering and worrying over her, their concerned words washing over her in a gentle pitterpatter. It was quite nice, to be honest…

But after a few minutes, Kara's senses finally returned to her in full and her eyes shot open.

"Slenderman!" she gasped, and the force and fear in her voice caused all of her friends to let go of her again. Now their faces held grief, fear and apology.

"What happened?" she asked in confusion as she met all of their eyes individually. Why did they all look so scared?

"Don't you remember, Kara?" Winn was the first one to ask. "You almost died out there…" and then he explained.

When Kara never came home from her battle with Slenderman, J'onn personally led an armed rescue squad up to Oakside Park with every intention of rescuing her, but not a single ounce of force was needed because they found Supergirl lying just outside the park gates for them, like she was waiting for them. But she was covered in blood, bruises and foliage, and she was practically on death's doorstep. Hardly breathing, not at all awake, covered in wounds of all kinds, body broken in several places, and costume totally destroyed, it was hardly a pretty picture. But the eeriest of all was the fact that she had been propped up there, like her attacker (Slenderman) had placed her there intentionally.

"He did," Kara gasped as her own memories slowly started to return to her as well. All though all her memories were just a jumbled haze of pain and panic, she did manage to remember Slenderman taunting her before disposing of her. He had just defeated her and was seconds away from actually killing her before he said, "I have plans for you, Kara", and then he released her. She was on the edge of consciousness and was only dimly aware of him propping her up right outside the gates of the park, a clear sign of intimidation. And attached to her cape was an old scrap of paper that read "FOLLOWS".

The war was not over. Not yet. Not even close. Because if it had been, Kara would not have lived to see any of her friends ever again. But because she was still alive, it meant that it was because Slenderman still wanted her alive, and Kara couldn't think of anything more chilling than that. Why? Why had he spared her? What were these other plans? Did she even want to know? Or better yet, did she even have a choice?

"I have never been defeated so badly before," she groaned, examining her body again. It was still covered in scars and injuries, but the pain wasn't so intense that she was on the verge of fainting anymore. God, what a scary night that had been! She really hadn't ever come that close to death or defeat before. And yet last night had changed all that, finally bringing her an opponent who was able to crush her as easily as she usually crushed others. And from the look she was seeing on her friends' faces, it was clear that this realization horrified them just as much as it did her. How was she supposed to defeat Slenderman now?! Or was there really no hope at all?

"I'm calling in for more help," J'onn decided at last, and then he said no more as he left the med bay, leaving Kara in the care of the rest of her friends. All of them could only huddle together in fear as they all awaited the dark future that was looming over their heads like a storm cloud. Whatever was coming was not going to be pretty, nor would it be over quickly. All one needed to do was look at all the bruises, cuts and bumps that littered Kara's usually-invulnerable body in order to get the picture. No one had ever seen a Kryptonian bleed that much that fast ever before…

A week later, although Kara was still badly injured, she found herself standing beside her friends once again as they all launched a second attack on Oakside Park. This time, though, it wasn't just the DEO. J'onn had actually sent out a call across the multiverse and brought in help from Earth 1…

"Well howdy," Flash greeted as he and Green Arrow ran over to Supergirl.

"Barry!? Oliver!?" she gasped in genuine delight, staggering back over to them.

"Woah, what happened to you?" Oliver recoiled when he saw how weak Kara looked. Even though it had been a week already and she had a fast healing factor, she had been so badly beaten in her battle against Slenderman that seven days was still not enough to totally heal her.

"A really bad battle," she replied grimly, knowing how bruised and battered she still was. She was doing a lot better, able to walk and fly without help, but she certainly wasn't in peak condition. That's how they all knew it was serious.

"No kidding," Oliver shook his head, already on alert. He already had a feeling that he knew exactly why he and Barry had been called here, and this was it…

15 minutes later, his theory had been confirmed. Kara and her friends were quick to explain to him and Barry about the Slenderman creature, and they both got the reference, having their own version of him back on Earth 1.

"That scumbag!" Barry cried angrily. "He's slaughtered thousands of humans on our Earth too!"

"Recently?" Kara sounded horrified.

"Well, some, yes," Oliver interrupted, giving Kara a more accurate mental image of the statistics of Slenderman attacks. "We've had about 15 deaths in the past two years and the other thousands that Barry is referencing have happened in all the centuries that we've been hunted and haunted by this demon!" and as Oliver explained the Slender story of Earth 1, Kara's mind was brought chillingly back to the forest where he had left her marked with a page that read "FOLLOWS". Was this what that had meant? That Slender would never ever stop following her? Or that he followed even across space and time? Was he able to travel across the multiverse too? It was unsettling, upsetting and disturbing, to say the least.

So Kara's work of explaining the story to Oliver and Barry was cut short, since they already knew about the lore all too well. And when they heard what she had been up to, they were more than happy to team up with her.

"I can't guarantee it'll do any good," she warned as they, plus the entire DEO, made their way up to Oakside.

"If I can get in at least one punch, it will," Barry promised, cracking his knuckles darkly.

"But that's just it!" Kara replied urgently. "I don't know if you'll even manage that…" then she explained, in more detail, about her own horrific, graphic defeat. It was very swift, violent, dramatic and traumatizing, and both Barry and even Oliver looked a little more than unsettled to hear that Slenderman was a beast powerful enough to beat even a Kryptonian. And easily, no less! Kara described how helpless she had been against Slenderman so, no doubt, it would be far worse for everyone else in their little army than it had been for her. And they too were quite spooked to hear about how he had spared Kara's life, keeping her alive because he "still had plans for her".

"What does that even mean?" Barry whispered, looking much more frightened than before.

"I think we're about to find out," Kara replied, quickly using a sun grenade on herself. It wasn't as good as getting to heal up properly, but they had no more time to waste. And right at that moment, who should appear but Slenderman himself?

This battle went quite differently than the one before. Even though Kara and friends were still soundly defeated, quite a few good DEO soldiers being killed in nightmarish and violent ways, Slenderman didn't seem to be as… aggressive as before. He still utterly crushed their ranks, but that urgency and animalistic viciousness from Kara's fight was gone. It was like he was taking this most recent battle as something to pass the time, which was even more frightening than when he was attacking her with all the force he could muster. Why was he not taking this battle as seriously as before? He was in no more danger now than he had been when fighting Kara alone! So what was this strange change in his temperament that she was noticing? Why was he not as interested tonight as before?

Well, Kara never quite got an answer to that because, at one point, Flash came running at her.

"Kara! Come quick!" he urged, and then he grabbed her by the hand and dragged her back from the way he had come. As fast as Kara was, Flash was faster. He got her to his desired destination in almost half the time it would've taken her.

"Wait. Is this a… church?" Kara was suddenly brought out of her fear, anger and bloodlust and shoved into confusion as she looked all around herself. Peeling paint, faded and broken walls, old crosses, what looked like a pentagram on the floor… Wait. What? And that was when Flash explained.

While the others were outside trying to beat Slender with physical force, Flash had gone zooming around the forest in attempt to find something else. This was one of the many places he stumbled upon, but the difference was that it seemed to hold some answers.

"I also passed a farm a while back. It said it belonged to the Matheson family. And from what I found out there, they summoned him here using a book of ancient spells and black magic. That's what the pentagram is for…" Flash cocked his head at the old, dark marking on the floor.

Ah. So it was a classic case of a stupid family summoning a demon out of pure curiosity. The story ended as well as one might expect. The demon wins, its summoners die, and it continues to haunt the land throughout all generations. It follows its destiny and continues to haunt the world wherever it lands. It made Kara want to scream. But she didn't. Instead, she only continued to listen keenly as Flash continued to explain all that he had learned within the past 30-some minutes.

"So I think we're going to need to try a little trip into the past. Or at least an alternate dimension," Flash admitted at last. Normally, Kara would've blanched at the idea, but for once, she agreed.

"If this is the only way to stop a monster like him, then let's go," she agreed. "I just hope time is the one border it can't follow us across," she added darkly.

"Ok," Flash replied. "But first, we need to get everyone back out to safety…"

And then after another 20-some minutes, Flash managed to send the survivors back home, safely out of the boundaries of Oakside Park, before returning to Kara. The only other one to remain was Green Arrow.

"Because if you have answers, I ain't leaving!" he insisted stubbornly. Although the others had tried to come along as well, Flash was able to convince them that he didn't have quite enough power to bring all of them along. It was an upsetting answer, but the others took it gracefully and J'onn led the retreat home, sending a silent prayer that Flash, Green Arrow and Supergirl would accomplish whatever it was that they were about to do.

"I only hope it doesn't follow after them…" he muttered as he cast one dark look back at the forest, where Slenderman was still alive and well. Only time would tell, wouldn't it?


	8. Final Chapter: Always Watches, No Eyes)

Somehow, Barry's crazy little plan worked and he, alongside Oliver and Kara, found himself standing in the same chapel as before, only this time, it was restored. It looked brand new and it was bright and colorful, not at all eerie or decrepit or abandoned or rundown. Instead, it just looked normal. This was a century ago…

"So, what exactly are we doing here?" Oliver was the first to break the silence, still on guard even though he and the others had the feeling that, for once, they were safe.

"We are here today only to watch," Barry replied. "If I was able to time everything correctly, and I think I was, we are currently standing not just within the old Matheson family chapel, but also in the time when they first decided to summon the Slenderman!" and his plan became clear to them immediately. They weren't here to try and find a way to defeat Slender, not yet at least. For now, they were only supposed to be-

"Observers. Got it," Kara muttered grimly as she and the others stalked around the church in attempt to find any Satanic or otherworldly activity. At the moment, there was nothing. It was just a normal little chapel…

By nightfall, a cluster of little kids came running in under the cover of darkness. Giggling and whispering, they ran along with an ancient old book between them. Kara quickly picked up Barry and Oliver and flew them to the rafters of the chapel, hiding them within the shadows. They all peered down at the gaggle of kiddos and watched as they began to sing, dance, laugh and play. They teased one another and poked and prodded, just like any little kid would do, but what made their games different was the creature at the heart of it all. Slenderman.

That book they were carrying was no ordinary book, but an ancient tome of power, magic, mystery and spells. They were struggling to read from it, teasing and daring one another to conjure up something spooky. Kara could hear the older teasing the younger, daring them to be brave and read a spell or two. And the younger pleaded with the older to not. Typical sibling stuff. It almost made Kara want to laugh…

But then she caught sight of one of the pages of the book (which read: ALWAYS WATCHES, NO EYES) and remembered why they were all here and that aura of urgency settled over her once again. After about 20 minutes more, an older woman burst in on them all. With eyes and voice sharp and chiding, she chastized all the kids for being out alone so late at night. Like any mother, or maybe aunt or older sister, she berated them all and sent them all back to bed with a stern hand, a stern warning and a stern expression.

But once they were gone, a change seemed to settle over her. She became feverish, almost delirious! Whispering and whimpering to herself, she muttered and paced and wrung her hands together like someone in a crisis. The trio of superheroes watching her from the rafters above exchanged silent looks of confusion, but none of them dared say a word.

After a few more minutes of this madness, the woman finally stooped over to pick up the big old book that the children had left behind in their mad-dash to get to bed before any further punishment was brought down over their naughty little heads. The woman suddenly seemed to still, like she wasn't really all there anymore. Her animatedness stopped at once as she sank to her knees, riffling through the book. Kara could still hear her rambling on like a stereotypical horror-asylum character from a movie, but she couldn't make out any of the words. At least not at first.

But then the woman finally stopped skimming through the pages. She cast the book aside and pulled out a dagger from the folds in her dress. After violently ripping open a wound across her palm, she began to draw a giant pentagram on the chapel floor in her own blood. Kara could feel Oliver and Barry shift beside her, Oliver in disgust and Barry in terror. She tightened her grip on them reassuringly, silently pleading with them to not move a muscle. They didn't. Instead, they all continued to watch as the woman below finished her pentagram, reopening her book and finally reading something from the ancient and tattered pages.

As her blood stained the pages and as her voice sang out the cursed words, all the candles in the chapel began to light themselves one by one until every wick was burning. That was when the pentagram itself began to glow, and He arrived…

Kara didn't remember what happened next. One moment, she was there looking down in horror as her demon slowly began to emerge up from the floor like something right out of an old horror film, and the next, they were all back in the present day. They were still in the chapel rafters, but the light was gone and the woman was gone and all the candles were ancient and the blood had dried black.

But even though they were back in the present, Kara could still feel His ghastly presence all around them, and she could still see his pale and faceless visage rising up from the bloody pentagram. Always watches, no eyes. Even though she had been hidden in the rafters, an invader from another century, she had been certain that he had been looking right at her and her two companions as he rose up out of the ground. Even across space and time, he could see where and when she was exactly. Always watches, no eyes. It was chilling, to say the least.

"What on earth just happened?" Oliver finally asked, voicing the question all three of them were asking. The answer would come to them far sooner than they could've possibly imagined…

Only a day later, the trio was in Star Labs. With Kara at the helm, simultaneously talking to friends from the DEO, the trio of heroes was busy trying to piece together the true history of the Slenderman.

"Looks like Alex's theory wasn't too far off after all," Kara muttered bitterly as she gazed up at one of the large monitors in the tech room of Star Labs. It was currently on a page talking about a mysterious and ancient alien race so old and unknown that they did not properly have a name, And they predated nearly every other alien race out there.

"That's one old dude!" Barry breathed as he, with Kara and Oliver beside him, ogled up at the large monitor. Again, there wasn't much information on the Slenderman's race, but J'onn had since been able to trace it back to millions and millions of years back. They were born quite a long time before any other race.

"But wait. I don't think that our Slenderman is the original one," Kara murmured as she studied what little info she did have over the creature. From what she was reading, although the creatures were nigh-immortal and invulnerable, even they could die eventually. Only time could really kill them, but it was something. So the monster they were fighting at the present was only one in a long line of others. Thankfully, it appeared that they were a dying species, not many of them left alive, but the few that were still out there were eldritch abominations. They could warp and rewrite reality itself, more than even the Flash could ever hope to do. It was how they were able to survive so long, even while dying out. And it was also why they were so powerful and mysterious, capable of easily defeating a Kryptonian and crossing space and time like it was nothing and being capable of seeing, sensing and communicating, even without a face or eyes…

"But wait a minute!" Kara muttered. "Now that we know that they are indeed an alien race, and have magic to their name, we do sort of have a way to defeat them!" as powerful as aliens could be, they ALWAYS had weaknesses. This one would be no different. And now that Kara knew that Slenderman used magic (or whatever you wanted to call his power) then she already knew for a fact that magic could be used against him. That's just how it worked. For example, when Reign was still a problem for the Superfriends, she had been defeated by magic and science both. She had come from and wielded magic and had died by the same thing. If that was true for Reign, why couldn't the same be true for Slenderman?

"So you know what that means, boys?" Kara asked her two companions.

"That we're about to go all Harry Potter on his rear end?" Barry asked hopefully. While Oliver shot him an exasperated look, Kara only gave him a devious smile.

"Bingo!"


	9. Good Ending: The Arrival (Not Canon)

"Woah," Kara couldn't help but gasp as she cradled the precious tome in her hands. It felt so old and mysterious, like its power was radiating an aura out from the pages and onto her. She knew at once that she had found exactly what she was looking for. Now all she needed was to get back to the chapel before Slenderman could catch her!

When she flew back outside, she was devastated to see that Lena and J'onn were no longer a part of the battle against Slenderman, but she silently thanked Rao that Nia was still alive and well, being protected viciously by Brainy. She flew on past them, but was halted by something literally ripping the book out of her hands.

"NO!" she screamed as the ancient spine split down the middle, scattering the pages everywhere like leaves being blown off a tree in an autumn windstorm. She reached out fruitlessly as hundreds of pages swarmed away in all directions. Those who were nearby saw the book burst apart, literally tearing at the seams, and they echoed Kara's despairing cry. Even if only she knew how important that book really was, the others only needed to see the look of pure devastation on her face to realize that the loss of that book might've equated to the loss of this battle.

For a second, Kara could only continue to stare in horror as the pages quickly scattered themselves into every crack and corner of the forest. She was dimly aware of the Slenderman practically laughing with hideous glee at her ultimate misfortune, but as she watched the papers fly further and higher away, far too numerous for even someone of her power to catch, she suddenly caught an idea. Watching the papers spread out in all directions before hiding reminded Kara of when the proxies had first attacked, only in reverse. They had come together from all corners of the forest, and they had come out of hiding. The exact opposite of the pages. And now she couldn't help but wonder, even if she couldn't find a spell to send the Slenderman back to whatever planet, Hellscape or alternate dimension he had come from, maybe there would be something to release his grip over these poor, innocent victims.

Kara quickly took after the nearest page. Although it was a fruitless endeavour, since she was widening her search and her goals a little bit more, that evened the odds out just slightly. Of course, Slenderman still went after her at once, knowing exactly what she was trying to do, but she refused to be cowed by him anymore. Terrified as she was, already certain that he was only one snap away from utterly obliterating her, she flew on in the darkness, collecting page after page after. Then at last, she used her wrist communicator.

"Lena!" she cried. "Do you have any Harun-El?"

"Do I what?!" the Luthor squwaked, sounding utterly astounded that Supergirl was asking her this right here and now. "I don't think a power-up is going to do you much-"

"Not me!" Supergirl interrupted. "The proxies!" and even though Lena wasn't quite as in-the-know as Kara was about Slenderman and his proxies, that was all she needed to say before Lena started to get the picture.

"You want to see if you can bring them back, can't you?" she asked.

"Of course! I know they aren't Kryptonian, but they have Slender-blood in the them, so to speak. Harun-El does affect humans, so who's to say it won't affect Slender creatures either?" Kara replied.

"But how do you know it will split them, and not just give them even more super powers?!" Lena demanded, but despite her skepticism, she was already flying away from the battlefield, sending a quick text to everyone else that she was going to return to L-Corp for a second and be back as fast as she could. No one was very happy to hear about that, some muttering that she was deserting them while others watched her go longingly, wishing that they could join her in an escape, but Lena only continued to fly onward towards National City.

"I don't!" Supergirl answered Lena's previous question. "But my friends and I have done enough research that we are willing to bet that it could work. I mean think about it: Reign was a human-alien hybrid of sorts, and what are these creatures other than the very same thing?"

"But Sam wasn't a mind-control victim!" Lena tried to remind the Girl of Steel, quickly reeling back all of the facts about Sam and Reign that she could remember at the moment. There were a lot of differences between Sam and these proxies.

"But it just might work!" Kara continued to argue. "The pages I'm trying to find belong to a spell book I think we can use to stop Slenderman, because even though you don't believe in magic, it is a very real thing, and it is one of the things that fuels him!"

"So we're just going to throw magic and science at these 'Sam-Reign 2.0' creatures!?" Lena demanded, clearly unsatisfied with such a poorly-thought-out decision, but Supergirl only whispered a soft plea to Lena.

"I don't know what else to do, Lena. I'm scared! I think this may be our only hope. And we're running out of time. So please, please, please help us. Help all of us!" and Lena finally signed in resignation.

"I'm headed back to L-Corp now, think you can hold everyone together for 20 more minutes?" she asked.

"Yes I can. Thank you," Supergirl murmured back, and she heard Lena give her a tired "you're welcome" before their comms went dead. Now, it was back to the battle! Fingers crossed that all went well…

20 minutes later, Lena was back with a large supply of Harun-El darts. She shot the first proxy she saw and crossed her fingers, hoping against hope that it would help the human break free from its Slender-induced proxy side. Against all odds and expectations, the plan actually worked and the Harun-El boost was just what the human inside needed in order to free itself from Slenderman's control.

Although Kara's research on Slenderman and his alien race was far from perfect or in-depth, what she was able to learn was that one magical being often had its own unique style of power that did not always mesh well with another magical being. It was like how there were countless tech companies in the world, but not every device from every company would work with a device from another company. In Kara's research, she had read that Slenderman was weak to some types of magic, and that because he already had his own brand (per se), any foreign magic could possibly be used against him. That was what Kara had been betting on when she begged Lena to bring them all some Harun-El.

The magic of the Harun-El was clashing with the magic of Slenderman inside the proxy's body, and while the Slender magic tried to keep the proxy side alive by rejecting the Harun-El, the Harun-El did the exact same thing and rejected the Slender magic, allowing part of the human to separate from its proxy side. One little inch was all the human needed before it was able to throw off the rest of Slenderman's influence, the Harun-El not only freeing them and creating a "blind spot" in the Slender magic, but also strengthening them to new heights. And since Slenderman was still busy dealing with J'onn and Kara, he didn't have the time or strength to devote all of his attention to all of his proxies. Although he could be a hive mind, the more and more people he had linked up into him, the harder and harder it became for him to exist. It was like wifi when there were too many computers all on one server.

Now, with the proxies strengthening and Slenderman weakening, the tides were finally starting to turn. More and more of them were waking up, coming back to the humanity that had been so brutally ripped away from them. And Slenderman suddenly found himself facing more and more adversaries. Even if it could've easily crushed an entire city, dealing with superpowered aliens, military-trained fighters, and Harun-El-powered ex-proxies was a bit harder to beat.

"WE'RE DOING IT!" someone shouted in the distance, voice full of obvious glee, and they were right. Princess Alice woke up. Anastasia Bathory woke up. Kate woke up. Lyra woke up. All of these proxies woke up and wasted no time in helping their saviors battle against their captor.

Kara watched the scene unfold with a newfound confidence pounding in her heart. She even laughed a little as she watched Slenderman turn his head in something akin to confusion as he lost control over more and more of his minions. They were all alive and awake now, and thanks to the Harun-El, they were very, very strong and very, very angry.

"LET'S GET HIM!" Kate snarled as she rushed at Slenderman. Thanks to the Harun-El, she was actually able to stand up against him (sort of) and when her fellow ex-proxies came to her aid, it only got easier for her from there.

"No. No. No! NOOO!" Slenderman gave an unholy and roaring shriek that caused a great agony to all in the vicinity, but for once, it was not enough to stop the vengeful onslaught threatening to overtake him. His mere voice and visage alone could still induce death and agony, but being a proxy had proved so much worse than that combined that they were able to resist Slenderman's attacks. And there were so many of them that even if some were brought to their knees by his face or voice, there were more who could easily step up and fill the gaps.

"Yeah! Woo!" Nia laughed in the distance, her own brand of magic still going strong. Kara could see Lena soaring overhead alongside J'onn once more. The DEO was now aided by the proxies, all of their fallen comrades returning to the fight, and then some!

"We did it!" Kara whispered to herself. "We really did it!" but that was when she remembered. The book! Although the battle was finally looking up for the Superfriends, they still needed that spell in order to undo Slenderman's evil. Muscle alone would not be enough. Even if the whole forest could turn against Slenderman, from every little last gnat to every little last blade of grass, it would still not be enough to properly defeat him. They needed that spell!

So Kara continued to fly all over the forest at her fastest speed, snatching up page after page after page wherever she could. She skimmed them all until she finally found two that caught her eye. One was a resurrection spell. The other was essentially how to perform an exorcism. Well, wasn't that exactly what she was trying to do? Only with a forest instead of a human? If that were the case then…

Kara had found about 80% of the book by the time she found her expulsion spell. Once she had it, though, she wasted no more time with collecting pages. She had the only one that she really needed, so the game could end here and now! So it did. She flew all the way back to the Matheson family chapel in record time and used her laser vision to light up the pentagram and give it new life. It was time to end this thing once and for all!

15 minutes later, then, she had succeeded in her goal. Although all of it left Kara feeling very tired and drained, she had managed to successfully pull off the expulsion spell and send Slenderman far, far, far away from Oakside and Midvale, and Earth altogether! So it was over. It was finally, finally over. THe nightmare had finally ended, and they were all free.

"Well… Not all of us…" a garbled and distorted voice murmured. It was Lyra. Even though Lena and Kara had both saved her, her time serving Slenderman had not been kind to her, and she still bore a great many scars from the ordeal that would not be as easily fixed as her reversion back to normal would be. Sure, she and the others were alive and free once again, but no spell on Earth would be able to fix them quickly. It was still going to take a lot of time to get better.

"But some of us won't ever get that chance," now it was Oliver's turn to speak. He had lost Thea, Barry, Cisco and a great deal of other friends, family and soldiers along the way. The body count was dismally high.

"But does it have to stay that way?" Kara asked suddenly. She was still clutching quite a few papers in her hands, even though she'd only needed the one that would send Slenderman back to where he had come from.

"What do you mean?" it was Lena who asked this next question, very badly bruised and beaten, but alive and somewhat happy nonetheless. J'onn was being cared for by medics, even closer to death's door than she was.

"These," Kara replied, holding up the huge lump of papers she was still death-gripping, and then she explained how she'd (literally) sped-read through them all. Even though that wasn't enough to properly understand every little nuance to every little spell, it was enough to give her a basic rundown of what each page could do.

"And one of them in here offers the chance at resurrection," she said, and then everyone else's eyes went wide with understanding. They almost didn't even dare to believe it, because it sounded too good to be true. Their hearts all sped up with hope and terror. They put hands over mouths and felt loose muscles tightening up once again. This was even more stressful than the battle had been!

"But it's worth a shot nonetheless," Kara decided firmly, then she took a deep breath in and began to chant again. The pentagram started to glow its evil, bloody red, but this time, there was no violent storm that accompanied it. Just softness and silence. There was still a chill in the air, but it was no longer angry or aggressive. Kara tried to swallow down her fears and she kept right on chanting, thinking about every friend she'd ever lost to the Slenderman, silently pleading with them to come back to her. She thought about every face and name, calling them all back from the grave. Praying and pleading, she argued with death over their souls, and slowly drew them up from the portal one by one…

If the previous spell had left Kara drained, the second one nearly killed her, but for once, she didn't even care at all.

"If I did it, that's all that matters," she managed to say, on her stomach now, trembling from the exertion of just trying to exist. But all that pain and raw exhaustion was lost upon her because she could see souls starting to fill the chapel, and with every passing second, the red light from the pentagram grew dimmer while their outlines grew stronger. At last, then, they were solid entities once more, with faces and voices, and Kara could recognize them all. CR. Lauren. Winn. James. Maggie… Alex… Kara smiled at her once, and then fainted clean away, Alex's restored face burned onto her eyelids as she slipped away into the darkness…

In time, Kara made a full recovery, and as did everyone else whom she had brought back: resurrected entity or restored proxy or otherwise. Although it made quite a stir the next morning, to see a giant army of people walking back out of Oakside Park, it all managed to get done quickly and quietly. The number of people Kara brought back did cause a slight population and relocation issue, but the rest of the world was so stunned to hear the story that every person on the planet was more than happy to help find all of these resurrected humans and aliens new homes somewhere/ So one by one, all of these saved victims were given new lives once again.

Kate, Lauren and CR all moved in together. Princess Alice was sent to live with Queen Elizabeth. Anastasia was given a new home in Slovakia. Winn, Alex, Maggie, Lyra and James were reunited with the Superfriends. Barry and all of the people Oliver had lost were all brought back. Everything had been undone and all was right with the world once again! Death's books were balanced once more. With Slenderman truly dead and gone forever, all of the lives he unfairly took were allowed to come back to Earth once more.

"Who'd have ever thought?" Alex asked, throwing an arm around Kara. After hearing Alex speak for the first time after coming back to life, Kara had cried for nearly a whole week straight, weeping nonstop, but by now, she was able to be around Alex without fearing that she was only some hallucination or dream. And she no longer wailed every time Alex hugged her, or told her that she loved her. Although it still brought a great pain to Kara's heart to think about how close she had come to losing Alex forever, she forced herself to put faith in Alex's return and rest assured that it was real. Eliza had been just as stunned to hear that Kara had managed to bring Alex back and she too went through another fit of grief and disbelief and pain as old wounds were violently reopened, but as the initial chaos finally simmered back down, she was able to greet her daughter again properly.

And the Danvers weren't the only ones reuniting. Across the globe, other old friends and family were finding each other again and even on other Earths, similar reparations were being made. The only place that suffered in the aftermath was Oakside. Every Oakside on every Earth was destroyed on unanimous agreement, shut down forever. But no one on any of the Earths cared at all. On the contrary, they were all more than happy to see the haunted park get leveled.

"Midvale's economy is gonna crash so hard!" Alex muttered one day when she heard about how many people were moving out. Even though they all knew that the danger was over, they still didn't want to live there anymore, not that anyone blamed them. But it did leave a sour taste in Alex's mouth to realize that her home was being abandoned.

"No it isn't," Kara replied gently, kissing her forehead and hugging her tight, still hardly able to believe that Alex really was truly back. "Because your true home is right here with me, and I will never, ever lose you again…" she gave Alex a firm squeeze as she said this (though not too firm because she didn't want to accidentally hurt Alex) and Alex gave a small, soft laugh in return.

"You're right," she murmured into Kara's shoulder. "You are my home. And so are Maggie, Lena, Nia, Brainy, Winn, James, J'onn, Eliza, and all of the rest of our Superfriends. They are my home, and now I am finally with them again."

"And this time, you WILL stay," Kara repeated, and she felt Alex nod into her shoulder. It was clear that Alex was still suffering from severe trauma from her death and resurrection, but lying there in Kara's arms finally made her feel hopeful again. Nothing else had ever made her feel quite as… present, as Kara was, in this very moment, and for the first time in a long time, both of the Danvers felt at peace. The next step in their healing process had just made its arrival, and it was a very welcome arrival indeed.


	10. Bittersweet Ending: Leave Me Alone

With the truth finally revealed to them, Kara, Oliver and Barry quickly led what was hopefully about to be the final attack against Slenderman. J'onn was going to lead the attack while Kara, Oliver and Barry sought out the spell book used to summon Slenderman all those years ago. It was their plan to recreate the ritual, only instead of summoning, they were expelling. And Kara, although she was no witch, had experience with magic thanks to her battles with Reign.

"I'm not very good at magic, but I know a little bit. It may be enough to help us undo this terrible curse!" she explained and although it didn't seem like much to go on, the others were more than willing to put their faith in their Supergirl and follow her into one final battle against the demon they called Slenderman.

Come nightfall, the battle with Slenderman began once again. While J'onn and his men (consisting of the entire DEO along with Teams Flash and Arrow) lured Slenderman out early, Kara, Oliver and Barry snuck away towards the Matheson family farm.

"Ok, all we need to do is find that book!" Kara muttered to her two companions, but she had barely finished speaking when Slenderman himself appeared, teleporting right behind them and making his entrance with his trademark dramatic scare chord. Kara, Oliver and Barry all cried out in pain and terror, clutching their ears as Slender's powerful energy buzzed like a million angry bees in their ears. It screamed and crackled like a live wire and it caused great disorientation and pain to the trio of champions. Suddenly, then, a tentacle shot out and grabbed Barry around the torso.

"Whoa!" he screamed as he was suddenly jerked off his feet.

"BARRY!" Kara and Oliver both cried out, and they struggled to reach Barry before the Slenderman could kill him. Oliver forced himself to ignore the pain in his hears and head as he began firing an array of unique arrows at the tall, suited man in front of him. Kara followed suit, still plugging her ears, but flying bravely at Slenderman and crashing into him after trying to use her laser vision to at least slow him down.

"No! No! NO!" Barry screamed at them as more and more of Slenderman's hideous and monstrous tentacles writhed around him. "Get the book! Get the book! GET THE BOOK!" and then he was silenced, voice growing muffled as the tentacles began to wrap around his face as well, slithering all over his skin and tightening until he couldn't even breathe, let alone speak. Kara could hear his muffled screams of agony and panic from behind Slenderman's tentacles, but no matter how hard she tried to free Barry, it was useless. Then at last, Barry's panicked moans went silent and Kara ceased struggling with the evil monster's tentacles.

"BARRY!" Oliver cried out in fury and dismay, but he lowered his bow, knowing that it was too late now. If either he or Kara wanted any chance of protecting the others, they were going to have to leave Barry to his fate. He was beyond help now, and trying to save him would only cost them more and more of the time that they didn't even have…

Suddenly, Oliver and Kara were back out in the middle of the forest. Slenderman had teleported them there. Uh oh. That was not good at all. Kara and Oliver only needed to exchange one nervous look before Kara was suddenly off, soaring like a speeding bullet through the starlit sky, Oliver clinging onto her cape as he rode on her back. Slenderman was in hot pursuit, teleporting all around them in a taunting manner. Oliver shot arrow after arrow, but they all bounced as easily off of Slenderman as they did off of Kara. Since Kara already knew her own powers were useless against Slenderman, she only concentrated on trying to get him to slip up so that she could return to the Matheson property.

All around them, a war was raging. Zombie-like creatures began to emerge from the trees, like something right out of an old horror film.

"What the heck are those things?!" Oliver thundered as a few more of the bloody, mangled humanoids limped through the forest and towards the sound of battle. All their eyes were pure white, empty, yet they walked with a purposeful gait. They knew where they were going. They had a goal in mind. Kara recognized them at once.

"Proxies!" she gasped.

"Proxies?" Oliver snarled in confusion.

"Slenderman's slaves!" Kara explained frantically. "They used to be normal humans until Slender's dark magic warped them into… well, that!" she gestured to a nearby proxy, and then she nearly crashed into a tree as she realized that she recognized the proxy she had gestured to.

"Oh, oh god, no…" she put a hand to her mouth as she flew back around. The proxy was snarling, foaming at the mouth, chattering in anger and bloodlust. It shook its ratty head around as it flexed its misshapen, razor-nailed fingers.

"Do you know it?" Oliver demanded, readying another arrow.

"Yes," Kara breathed in despair and dismay. "It's Lyra Strayd…" and so it was.

And all around, other old familiar faces were rising up from the grave once again. Kate was there. The woman from the past timeline was there. Other people who looked like her (relatives and descendants, most likely) were there. Even little Princess Alice was there. As was Elizabeth Bathory's daughter… Every person to ever go missing because of Slenderman was here. All of them resurrected as his ghastly army of mindless slaves. Proxies. And all the soldiers falling in the ongoing battle were brought back as well, forced to fight the very same people they were helping up until their last breath. It was a sick, sadistic, horrible, horrifying form of mental and emotional torture, and it just kept getting worse and worse every time another memeber of the Superfriends died. And speaking of them…

Through the darkness, Kara saw flashes of light from laser and stun guns, and she saw the moonlight glinting off of various blades, knives and swords. She could hear screams of anger, terror, grief and agony as all of her friends and family united in attempt to stay this horrible creature.

She could see J'onn shouting orders in the distance, in full Green Martian glory. She could hear Lena's Lexosuit as she flew beside J'onn, shooting all sorts of rockets and cannons at the tall monster. She could see Nia's Dreamer powers glowing through the shadows. She could hear Brainy shouting out attack formations with Winn. She could see the glint of James' Guardian shield. And she could see all the surviving members of Teams Flash and Arrow doing the same.

Felicity and Iris stood back to back, guns blazing. The Black Canary was almost invisible under the cover of night. Thea Queen was firing off arrows just like Oliver. Cisco was alternating between using a futuristic machine gun and helping Winn try to build a robot from scrap metal they found around the park. Killer Frost was freezing large swaths of the land to create shields of ice for her friends. But the one thing Kara did not see was the book…

Brought back to life by this realization, she resumed her attempt to break into the Matheson family farm. The second she resumed her siege, however, Slenderman returned to fend her right back off again.

"It's no use!" Oliver snarled. "He's too powerful!"

"Then what else can we do?" Kara demanded in despair.

"Call in one of your friends to create a diversion," he replied, and the tone of his voice was chilling.

"No," Kara whimpered. "No, no, no, no, NO!" but over her frantic and heartbroken pleas, Oliver continued to insist that it had to be this way, or they would never win this fight. So finally, Kara surrendered. Calling over Lena, Nia, Brainy and J'onn, she and Oliver all challenged Slenderman together, acting as if they expected to defeat him in combat for the rights to get inside the Matheson family property.

But right in the middle of that terrifying battle, right on signal, Nia created an illusion around Slenderman that kept him thinking that Kara was still flying circles around his head. In actuality, though, she had finally slipped away from the fight and into the Matheson family farm. Although she hated leaving her friends behind, she knew it had to happen. She could only hope that Nia's dream-illusion would keep up long enough for her to find the book and undo this terrible curse before Slenderman realized that he had been tricked.. He was far better at magic than any of the rest of them were, so Kara had to hope and pray that he wouldn't even catch onto the fact that Nia was using his own reality-warping and hallucination-induction against him. Fingers crossed!

But once inside the Matheson house, finding the book was almost laughably easy. It hadn't been touched since the day it was used, stowed away immediately after Slenderman had been summoned to the farm. It was locked in a tiny safe in the darkest corner of the basement, but being a Kryptonian, it only took Kara about 30 seconds to find and retrieve it.

"Woah," she couldn't help but gasp as she cradled the precious tome in her hands. It felt so old and mysterious, like its power was radiating an aura out from the pages and onto her. She knew at once that she had found exactly what she was looking for. Now all she needed was to get back to the chapel before Slenderman could catch her!

When she flew back outside, she was devastated to see that Lena and J'onn were no longer a part of the battle against Slenderman, but she silently thanked Rao that Nia was still alive and well, being protected viciously by Brainy. She flew on past them into the chapel and knelt down over the bloody pentagram. Ancient though it was, she could feel it in her bones that it would still respond to her call.

"Please," she whispered to the book, falling to her knees, setting it on the floor, and then resting an open palm on its cover. "Please give us a spell to send this demon back to Hell!" and it was almost as if the book had heard her, because it began to warm her palm and as she opened it up and riffled through the pages, it turned right to a spell that Kara was certain she needed to use. On the next page right beside it was another hasty sketch, made with thick black pencil lines. It read LEAVE ME ALONE. How fitting…

Kara swallowed nervously and began to chant. Carefully straining over each and every letter, the foreign tongue became easier and easier to speak the longer and longer she chanted. By the time she reached the spell's end, then, it was coming totally natural to her. Then she read it again. And again. And again. And with every loop around, the ancient candles of the chapel began to flicker to life once more, although she didn't know how. And then the pentagram began to look wet, like it had been freshly drawn. A drone filled the air and everything got hotter and hotter, but Kara remained kneeling on the floor, practically praying out the chant. The words on the adjacent page began to move around and spin. LEAVE ME ALONE. LEAVE ME ALONE. ME LEAVE ALONE. ALONE LEAVE ME. ALONE ME LEAVE. LEAVE ALONE ME. ME ALONE LEAVE. LEAVE ME ALONE!

And then suddenly, the chapel doors burst open. Slenderman was there. But for once, he didn't look like he was in control. Instead, even though he had no face, Kara could already tell that he was terrified. It was radiating off of him. And the light coming from the pentagram seemed to latch onto him like tentacles, dragging him closer and closer in a vice-like grip. It was a very fitting and ironic death. Kara quickly turned back to the book, still chanting. The red tendrils from the pentagram dragged Slenderman even closer to her, but for once, she was not afraid. Those tendrils were binding him and all of his powers. He could not hurt her anymore. He could not hurt anyone anymore. It was finally over for him, for good!

He did try to escape, thrashing and wailing like a ghost, but he was as powerless here as all of his victims had been in his grasp. Poetic justice. His sinister static echoed throughout the chapel, filling the room with panic, chaos and discord, but for once, it only seemed to be affecting him. Kara could hear the static and screaming and pounding, but it did not bother her anymore. Instead, she continued to chant on and on in an endless drone until the pentagram finally opened up like a devilish mouth. The tendrils continued to pull Slenderman down and as he sank away into the hole in the floor, he reached out one pale white hand towards Kara, but she didn't even flinch as it halted inches away from her face. Then it followed the rest of its master down into the endless abyss of darkness. Then the mouth sealed up and everything went dark.

In the hours to follow, Kara finally managed to wake up from her somewhat hypnotized state, feeling even more drained than when she'd Solar Flared and she almost felt as if she was having an out-of-body or near-death experience. She was still very much alive, but she was in shock, on the verge of collapse. But that was when the survivors of the fight came rushing in. J'onn was the one to catch her before she hit the cold, hard ground. So he had survived the fight after all! And Slenderman was gone now. But had the others survived? Or was she one of the only ones left…?

In time, Kara would learn that the answer was no. Winn had been killed, Caitlin Snow had been killed, Thea Queen had been killed, Roy Harper had been killed, James had been killed. And many, many other DEO soldiers had also fallen. And Kara's own powers, it seemed, had been killed as well. It was as if she had accidentally expelled them out of her body while chanting that "Leave Me Alone" spell. She briefly wondered, then, if those red tendrils had been her own, her own powers dragging Slenderman down to his hellish eternity and sacrificing themselves with Him. The thought made her sad and proud at the same time and although it terrified her to think that she might never truly be the Girl of Steel again, promises and help from Lena, J'onn and other survivors of the battle were more than able to offset her worries.

"You're still a hero even without the cape," J'onn promised Kara one day. "You sacrificed yourself to save us and kept on fighting even after it was all over. Trust me when I say you don't need powers to be strong, brave and heroic."

"And if you want, I can build you something like the Lexosuit so you can fly and fight again," Lena added, and with their support, Kara was able to step back into the old role of superhero once again. But even though she was able to move on, there was a lot left behind that they still needed to fix. With Barry and Caitlin dead, that removed two of Team Flash's strongest members. But Oliver and Felicity had offered to spend some time at Star Labs helping them all recover.

Midvale, meanwhile, slowly turned into a ghost town. Even though Slenderman had been defeated once and for all, the town was still so shaken by his legend that every resident moved out eventually. The forest and park were destroyed, but even that wasn't enough to keep people in Midvale. So the town eventually became empty.

"It's hard, isn't it? Seeing our old home like this…" Kara murmured to Eliza as the two of them stood by the welcome sigh into the town. It was old, chipping and splintered by now, disuse and neglect leaving it at the mercy of the cruel elements. LEAVE ME ALONE had been spray-painted over the town's name on the sign. The rest of the town was in shambles too, eerily empty and quiet.

"It is," Eliza sounded choked up, voice thick with tears for the loss of her elder daughter and their hometown. She reached out to touch Kara's arm for support. It was clear that the still-powerless Kryptonian felt the same way. She may not have shown it, but Alex's death was something she'd never get over and as much pleasure as she felt at finally getting some revenge, it would still never ever be enough for her. And none of the proxies had been saved either, the spell killing them instantly because it removed their life-essence (Slenderman) from them. Lyra was dead again. So was Kate. And so were all the other proxies across all of time and space.

"But I guess there is one good thing about all of this," Kara said at last. "Oliver was able to confirm that there are no more Slendermen-type creatures in either of our galaxies. There may still be some out there, but they are very, very, very far away from here. And with any luck, the very last of them will die out within this millenium."

"Good," Eliza's voice was cold, hard and sharp as she glowered at the place where so many people had fallen. It was a flat, barren terrain now, but she could still see the outline of the trees in her mind.

"Come on," Kara said at last, finally touching her foster mother's arm as well. "Let's go home…"

And then without another word, the two returned to their mini van and hopped in, driving top-speed back towards National City, leaving Midvale behind in the dust one last time. Neither of them looked back even once. Let Midvale rot in its grave. Only the ghosts and memories of the town would live there now. It would remain as a graveyard forevermore. They would leave it alone to its cold, quiet, futureless destiny. Soon, only a sign would still remain standing, and it would read: LEAVE ME ALONE.


	11. Bad Ending: The Departure

"Woah," Kara couldn't help but gasp as she cradled the precious tome in her hands. It felt so old and mysterious, like its power was radiating an aura out from the pages and onto her. She knew at once that she had found exactly what she was looking for. Now all she needed was to get back to the chapel before Slenderman could catch her!

When she flew back outside, she was devastated to see that Lena and J'onn were no longer a part of the battle against Slenderman, but she silently thanked Rao that Nia was still alive and well, being protected viciously by Brainy. She flew on past them, but was halted by something literally ripping the book out of her hands.

"NO!" she screamed as the ancient spine split down the middle, scattering the pages everywhere like leaves being blown off a tree in an autumn windstorm. She reached out fruitlessly as hundreds of pages swarmed away in all directions. Those who were nearby saw the book burst apart, literally tearing at the seams, and they echoed Kara's despairing cry. Even if only she knew how important that book really was, the others only needed to see the look of pure devastation on her face to realize that the loss of that book might've equated to the loss of this battle.

For a second, Kara could only continue to stare in horror as the pages quickly scattered themselves into every crack and corner of the forest. Then suddenly, she sprung back into action, like she'd been slapped awake, and she went flying after the scattering papers almost as fast as Barry would have run after them. Barry. If only he could've been there now! He would've been useful in a time like this. But no. He was dead. Killed by Slenderman's cruel, merciless tentacles. And he was very far from the last hero to suffer that gruesome and undeserved fate. On the contrary, with Slenderman's only Kryptonite destroyed, the true massacre was only just beginning…

While Kara went chasing fruitlessly after the scattering pages, Slenderman turned his attention back to all of the other heroes who were so bravely, and yet so stupidly, challenging him. This battle was finally starting to bore him. As fun and exciting as it had been at first, it was getting old now and he was ready to end it all. So he did.

First, a thick, black, long, slimy tentacle shot out from his back and picked Thea Queen up by the neck. Another one tore her bow out of her hands and threw it casually into a nearby tree. While she screamed silently, being choked to death by his tentacle, Oliver tried to save her.

"NO!" he thundered, firing arrow after arrow at Slenderman. But Slenderman ignored him in order to have a few more of his tentacles slither out and grab all of Thea Queen's limbs. For a second, then, there was only silence as he stopped dead in his tracks. Then right as Thea and Oliver's eyes began to widen in realization, he acted up once again. In a swift jerk, almost faster than Barry, Thea Queen had been suddenly ripped into six: head, four limbs and torso. And Slenderman dropped all six pieces of her right in front of Oliver.

"NOOOOOOO!"

J'onn and M'gann were the next ones to fall. Slenderman easily teleported J'onn right into his grasp, and did the same with M'gann. Strong as they were, Slenderman was a reality warper, and how could they fight fairly against a creature who could rewrite every little last rule to benefit him? What chance did they have at winning against an author who could change every little last plotpointed that he wanted until they all pointed to him? With M'gann and J'onn in his tentacles, then, he began to tie them up in a similar fashion as he had done to Maggie and Alex just over a month ago…

Bones broke, tendons tore, skin ripped off, organs were dislocated. Both of his victims moaned and cried out softly in pain as they were forced together, contorted in all sorts of graphic shapes and bent and mangled in horrific manners. Forced into positions no body could, they were pushed together tighter and tighter and tighter until they were practically one being, a little ball that Slenderman had mashed together. J'onn and M'gann were both dead by that point, and Slenderman hurled their tightly-packed corpses right into the heart of the battle, sending several DEO soldiers flying, or getting them crushed on impact by the J'onn-M'gann ball that he had created.

Next, Slenderman caught Lena, easily annihilating her suit and tearing it to pieces and leaving it to smoke and burn before killing her as well. All the bits of her suit that were still clinging to her body were forced inside her body as Slenderman stabbed her with the metal and wire from her broken Lexosuit. Metal replaced bones and wires, veins. And it all began to burn Lena and singe her skin off, but she had died of blood loss far before any of the burns got too bad. Her suit lay in ruins, dashed to the ground, and then her body followed suit, even more bones shattering as Slenderman smashed her into the stones right beside her battered, broken Lexosuit. Metal stuck out of her body at odd angles.

Iris was the next to go, ripped clean in half vertically. Then Felicity was torn in half horizontally. Nia was strangled and impaled at the same time. So was Brainy. Slenderman crushed James' head in his hands. Winn was absorbed into his body. Nora was hanged from the same tree that Nia and Brainy were impaled upon. One by one, Slenderman was slowly killing everyone from Team Supergirl to Team Arrow to Team Flash. And he did it all with great ease and glee, cementing how and why his race had been one of the longest-lasting ones of all. His people, though there weren't too many left now, were a very powerful, intelligent and violent race. That was how they had lasted so long through the eons. And Slenderman was just another prime example of his species.

Supergirl was the very last one to die, having died trying to send him back to Hell. She had managed to find the page she needed, but the spell didn't work. She was able to start it, but not finish it. She was too weak and inexperienced. The spell botched. It wouldn't respond to her. She got the pentagram to glow and start sucking everything in, but Slenderman didn't need to try too hard in order to escape its pull. He had, after all, just feasted upon the flesh and souls of countless other victims. He was at maximum strength. For once, he was strong enough to resist the spell Supergirl was trying to use. And her own inability to get the words out right were not doing her any favors.

When Slenderman finally caught Kara, she was still trying bravely to get the spell going, but it wasn't doing much.

"I applaud your bravery," he crooned slowly, coldly, causing Kara to clutch at her head in pain as his voice violated her very soul. "But I regret to inform you that it is useless. You are failing. You have lost…" and then he said no more as he took the book from her and began to use it himself, completing the spell she was trying to get started. The only difference this time was that the spell worked, and Kara was going to be the one sucked into the endless void.

"No, no, NO!" she gasped weakly, clawing at Slenderman's leg. Just touching it felt wrong, because his legs were as thin as his arms, which meant that they were cold, clammy and bony, like Death. Her chest was heaving and her vision was going, she continued to clutch at her head as Slenderman's icy voice slid into her brain like a hot knife, burning her and causing her sharp pain. She moaned and cried out, begging him to stop talking just because his voice was so disorienting and tortuous. But he only continued to drone on, voice flat and harsh, like a stone.

The pentagram opened up like a mouth and Supergirl was slowly forced inside, feet first. Her nails scrabbled against the chapel floor, but it was useless. She was being dragged to her grisly demise and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her feet were in. Ankles. Legs. Hips. Chest. Neck. Head. Arms. Hands. And then she was suddenly yanked down by an invisible force, ripped from the chapel entirely as her last vision was of the pentagram slowly sealing back up like a closing mouth. Then she was thrust into eternal darkness, silence and coldness. She had made the departure from life, Earth, space, time, energy, matter, and reality itself. She couldn't even hear herself scream.

Slenderman remained safe, on the upper world. Closing the book with a satisfied tilt of his faceless head, he glided calmly back out of the chapel like nothing at all had ever happened. He shut the doors behind him once and for all, that glowing portal still and silent once more. He returned the book to its proper place in the Matheson house's basement, and then he left. Without another look back or another sound, he left. He had won again. Now, it was time for the cycle to repeat all over again. Just like it had for eons before. And just like it would for eons more. An endless cycle. Traps, death, feasting, silence. Traps, death, feasting, silence. Traps, death, feasting, silence. Traps, death, feasting, silence.

Then Slenderman reached the gates of Oakside. It was time to go. And he made the departure.


End file.
